Green Fire

by Stephanie James

  Fact number two: he made love with passion and integrity. He could have finished what he had started last night in the pool without stopping to concern himself over her welfare. But he had shouldered the responsibility of protecting her without any reluctance, as if it were his duty as her lover.

  Fact number three: he knew and had worked with the California land investors. There was every reason to think he was still doing so. He had made more than one brilliant move in real estate during the past few years, according to Nina Winslow. The notion that he might be maneuvering to sell the Ackerly parcel to the conglomerate had to be accepted. He probably knew that the real value of the property was five times what he would have to pay for it if Ackerly went into bankruptcy. It would be his for the price of the hundred-thousand-dollar loan he had made to Phil Ackerly.

  Fact number four: he had agreed to extend that loan while Shelley tried to rescue the faltering firm.

  Shelley picked up another jigsaw piece and searched the board for the correct location. She was about to slide it into place when the doorbell rang. Reluctantly, she went to answer it even though she had a strong suspicion as to whom she would find waiting on the other side of the threshold. With a sense of gathering doom, she opened the door.

  Joel stood there cradling a sack of groceries in each arm. He was wearing his work clothes, and the blue eyes traveled over her defiant expression with sardonic intent

  “Some men,” he announced in a cool drawl, “might be offended at getting the cold shoulder from the woman they had spent the night with. Some men, a lesser sort of man, you understand, might feel hurt or annoyed or enraged. There are men in this world who, if they had spent the entire afternoon trying to call their lover, only to be told she couldn’t talk to them, might resort to violence.”

  Shelley blinked warily, taking a step back. He took advantage of the opportunity to walk into the Spanish-tiled hall. “Joel,” she tried to say firmly.

  “A certain breed of male might consider beating a woman for treating him as if he were unimportant after she’d had her wicked way with him.” He stalked past her toward the kitchen where he set the grocery bags down onto the counter with a touch of restrained violence. He swiveled to face her, feet braced slightly apart, his hands on his hips. The steel fairly glittered in the depths of his gaze as he swept her figure.

  “Joel, I was very busy this afternoon.” Shelley was horrified to hear herself begin the weak excuse. She had no need to invent any excuses, damn it!

  “There are men in this world who don’t accept excuses from their women because there are no reasonable excuses for what amounts to downright rude and cruel behavior!”

  “Damn it, Joel, there are women in this world who don’t see any need to make excuses for not being at a man’s beck and call just because he did her the honor of spending the night with her!” Shelley flared, her own hands curving into small fists that she planted on her hips as she faced him. She was not going to let him put her on the defensive like this! He was the one whose actions were under suspicion!

  “A lesser man than myself might really lose his temper over a statement like that. He might be tempted to put his woman over his knee and whale the living daylights out of her. It might not effect a large measure of behavior modification, but it sure as hell would relieve a certain amount of his frustration!”

  “Joel!”

  “But you, Shelley Banning, are an exceedingly lucky female,” he declared, dropping his hands from his hips and turning back to the grocery sacks, “because you are involved with not just any man.”

  “How fortunate!” she exclaimed, enraged.

  “Isn’t it?” he murmured unperturbed. He reached into one sack and removed a chunk of Parmesan cheese and a package of pasta. “Yes, indeed, you have had the good fortune to get involved with a man who understands you. He knows you’re scared to death about what happened last night. He comprehends your fear of getting emotionally entangled with a business associate, and he understands your fears of finding yourself involved so thoroughly and so quickly with a man. He is also perceptive enough to realize exactly what’s wrong with you this evening!”

  “And what might that be, Joel Cassidy?” she demanded.

  “Why that you haven’t had a proper meal all day, naturally. Everyone knows women get testy when they haven’t had a good meal.” He hauled a few more items out of the grocery sacks, including a bottle of Chianti Classico, a bunch of romaine lettuce and some cream.

  “Joel, just what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going to feed you,” he said simply, opening a cupboard door and hunting around inside until he found a large kettle. “And you, if you have the sense you were born with, will start grating the Parmesan cheese. If you don’t, I might get upset and revert to the behavior one might expect from a less understanding man. In other words, I might throttle you!”

  She heard the underlying tension in his words and bit her lip against the retort she was about to make. “Joel, I’ve already had dinner,” she heard herself say instead.

  “If you’re talking about that little grapefruit I saw on the puzzle table, that barely qualifies as an appetizer. Get to work on the Parmesan, woman. Hunger can take its toll on a man’s temper, too, you know!”

  Half an hour later, he put the plate of fettucine Alfredo down in front of Shelley and took the chair across from her at the round pedestal table in the dining area. “Now,” he growled gently as he poured the Chianti, “do you want to talk about today?”

  “Joel, I had a rough day,” Shelley said very steadily, eyeing the pasta with a hunger she knew was dangerous.

  “So did I. At one point, I was tempted to storm into the offices of Mason Wells & Associates and carry off one of their accountants across my saddle bow. Every time I called and was told you’d get back to me and you didn’t, I kept reminding myself that you were probably scared as hell.” He snagged her wary gaze across the table and said deliberately, “Don’t be afraid of me, Shelley. I keep telling you, I understand you. And I’m not afraid of you. Your ambition and your skills and your desire for success don’t frighten me in the least”

  Shelley stared at him, a surge of longing welling up into her throat She wanted to confront him with the news she’d had that day, wanted to ask him what sort of game he was playing with Ackerly Manufacturing and with her. But it was too soon. There was a client involved, and she owed it to the struggling manufacturing firm to protect its best interests. Confronting Joel point-blank and asking for an explanation would give him the advantage of knowing they were aware of the true value of the parcel of land. If he really were scheming, it might cause him to act quickly to ensure his possession of the property. At the moment, she had some time in which to maneuver on behalf of Ackerly. Shelley knew she couldn’t jeopardize her slender advantage for personal reasons. She had no right to do that

  So it was easier and less risky to fall back on what he thought was the real reason she had been refusing his calls all day.

  “Joel, just because we—we spent the night together, that doesn’t give you the right to assume too much about our relationship.”

  “It sure as hell does,” he shot back smoothly. “I thought I made it very clear last night that I consider you mine. I staked a claim on you last night, sweetheart, and I’m fully capable of retaining possession. I am a very understanding man,” he added with a note of husky warning, “but you pushed that understanding to the limits today. Don’t ever again do to me what you did to me this afternoon!“

  Shelley felt suddenly chilled.

  “The next time you’re upset, scared or suspicious of me, you will do me the courtesy of facing me and talking out the situation. Is that very clear?” he went on deliberately.

  “Joel!” That was exactly what she wanted to do, Shelley thought bitterly, but she didn’t dare. Not yet; too much was at stake. She couldn’t run the risk of having him lie to her. Damn! but it had been a mistake to mix business and passion. What a fo
ol she had been!

  “Because if it’s not clear, I will be happy to tattoo it in words of one syllable someplace very obvious on your soft body!” he concluded grimly.

  “It’s clear,” Shelley muttered, and stabbed vengefully at the fettucine.

  What wasn’t at all clear was how she was going to cope with this lethal combination of desire and business. A mistake in either sphere would ruin her.

  Chapter 6

  Shelley was at her desk in her office the next morning long before any of the rest of the staff arrived. She was on her second cup of coffee by the time she heard other people in the reception area, and she kept her door firmly closed so that none of her co-workers would be tempted to stop in for a morning chat

  Shelley had no time for morning chats; she was trying to detail the various contingency plans she had promised Dean Ackerly. The plans that should have been roughed out at her desk at home last night

  It wasn’t Joel’s fault the plans hadn’t gotten done, at least not directly, she was forced to admit as she paused to sip coffee and study her progress. He hadn’t attempted the seduction routine she had been expecting. He hadn’t tried to stake his “claim” again. Much to her astonishment, Joel Cassidy had made himself comfortably at home for a couple of hours after dinner, working with her on the puzzle, listening to some Bach on the stereo and talking easily about everything from the amusement business to the weather.

  Under the unthreatening flow of words and actions Shelley had finally relaxed enough to conduct something close to normal conversation. She had even relaxed sufficiently to start thinking about how to handle what she expected would be the inevitable conclusion of the evening. Her mind had begun to toy with rationalizations for succumbing once more to the passion Joel could generate between them.

  But the rationalizations had proved totally unnecessary. Somewhere around ten o’clock, he had arisen from the puzzle table, stretched luxuriously and kissed her good-by. She had watched him climb into the white Maserati and drive off into the desert night with a strangely wistful sensation when she should have been feeling relieved or suspicious.

  The wistfulness had made it impossible to work, and Shelley had told herself she would compensate by arising early the next morning and going into the office a couple of hours ahead of time. Then she had gone to bed and thought about Joel Cassidy far into the night

  Thus far this morning, her plan had worked, however. She had accomplished a great deal working with the possibility that the parcel of Ackerly land had far greater value than anyone had ever before assumed. She had drawn scenarios of how Ackerly could use an offer on that land to deal with the bank. She had formulated an outline of what they could do with the half million dollars, and she had considered the benefits and disadvantages to Ackerly of losing that particular manufacturing site.

  On the whole, getting rid of the site might be very beneficial. It was a more drastic move than either she or Dean had considered, but if the price was right, the end result of consolidation and belt tightening could be very useful.

  By nine o’clock, she had convinced herself that she had wrung every possible alternative out of the situation and gotten them down on paper for presentation to Ackerly Manufacturing. Every possible alternative, that was, if one worked under the assumption that Joel Cassidy was not personally manipulating matters. If he were innocent of any scheming and the extension of the loan was merely a generous gesture on his part and if he knew nothing of the California conglomerate’s interest in that land— If, if, if.

  Shelley shook her head and picked up her pencil again. Now she had to go through the process of creating scenarios based on the other assumption: that Joel was conniving to make sure he got the land rather than his hundred thousand dollars. When she began working with the alternatives available to Ackerly in that case, things looked far more grim. The smart thing to do was to pay off Joel and get him out of the picture before he took possession of the land through bankruptcy or default on the loan.

  But Ackerly couldn’t afford to pay him off, not if they were to keep the bank pacified at the same time.

  Her progress slowed considerably as she dealt with the dangerous possibilities if Joel were guilty of playing games. What was she to believe? Shelley asked herself again and again. How could she trust a man who made his living the way Joel did? A man she had been to bed with once and about whom she knew little except that he was a hustler in business and probably in every other area of life as well. The pencil in her hands snapped.

  The small act of destruction startled her, and she sat staring bleakly down at the two pieces of broken penal What was that man doing to her? How could she allow him to upset her work like this?

  The thought was broken off as completely as the pencil stub when the intercom on her desk buzzed.

  “There’s a lady calling on line three, Shelley. She won’t give her name. Shall I put her through? It sounds urgent,” Carol advised briskly.

  “Go ahead.” Shelley picked up the phone curiously. “This is Shelley Banning. May I help you?”

  “Miss Banning, you don’t know me, and there’s no reason to introduce myself except to say I’m an associate of Joel Cassidy’s.” The voice on the other end of the line was faint, a little breathless sounding. “What I wish to discuss with you concerns business only. Please do not interrupt. I will make this offer only once, and it will be very much in your best interests to pay careful attention.”

  Annoyed at the highhanded announcement, Shelley automatically started to interrupt, only to be cut off by the caller’s next words.

  “What I have to say involves a client of yours. Ackerly Manufacturing.”

  “I’m listening,” Shelley said quietly, suddenly and totally alert. It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn the premonition of clanger made the hair rise on the back of her neck. Now what?

  “Ackerly is headed for bankruptcy. Nothing you can do will halt that slide, and you would be well advised to remove yourself from the picture before your reputation suffers from association. The company will fail, Miss Banning. Let it go down on its own.” The stranger sounded as if she were reading.

  “What are you trying to say?” Shelley asked warily.

  “If you remove yourself from the scene, you will find it worth your while. You will be adequately compensated for the loss of your client Do you understand, Miss Banning? You will be compensated, but only if you stay out of Ackerly affairs.”

  Shelley swallowed in fury and sheer disbelief. “Are you trying to bribe me?” she whispered in astonishment.

  “Your compensation for ridding yourself of this client will be most generous, Miss Banning. It will amount to far more than your normal salary. Think about it” The phone was replaced in the receiver on the other end with a sharp click

  Shelley sat glaring at the silent phone in her hand. A bribe! She had just been offered a bribe to give up the task of trying to salvage Ackerly Manufacturing. Who in his or her right mind would bother bribing an accountant?

  Someone who wanted to be certain the company failed? Someone who stood to gain from Ackerly’s slide into bankruptcy? The main candidate for that role at the moment was Joel Cassidy. It would be an easy way to acquire that land.

  Fingers trembling with a strange kind of fear coupled with a fierce hurt and anger, Shelley gently hung up her phone. Would he do this to her? Could he do this to her? Was he capable of hiring someone to call her up and offer her a bribe to let Ackerly Manufacturing go to financial hell? Oh, dear God! If only she knew more about him. If only there had been more time to learn the true depths of her dangerous business associate.

  Restlessly, she began to pace the small office. Why hadn’t he offered me bribe himself? Why use someone else to do the dirty work? The answer was obvious, of course. He wouldn’t want to jeopardize his own business reputation by such an act. But what would make him think she was open to a bribe?

  Shelley halted in front of her window, frowning. He knew
that what was important to her in the Ackerly deal was the reputation she could make for herself, not the money. She shook her head dejectedly. More jigsaw pieces and none of them were fitting together.

  The office became oppressive, and she walked over to her phone and dialed Dean Ackerly’s number. She needed an excuse to get out of the building, and he was the logical one to use.

  “Dean? I’ve got some facts and figures together. Have you got time to go over them?”

  “Shelley, you know that under the present circumstances, any request from you automatically becomes my number-one priority!” He chuckled ruefully. “Do you want me to come over to Mason Wells?”

  “No, I’ll drive over to your office. See you in a few minutes.”

  Leaving word of her destination with Carol, Shelley left the building with one major question running through her head. How much should she tell Dean? She had no intention of accepting the bribe, so was there really any need for him to be aware the offer had been made?

  Not yet, she whispered silently as she slid behind the wheel of her car. Not yet. It was an excuse, she knew. She should be keeping her client totally informed of events. But somehow she couldn’t bring herself to further implicate Joel. She wanted to be certain he was at the bottom of this crazy game before she made any further accusations to Dean. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she wondered frantically how she was going to learn the truth before it was too late.

  Dean was ready and waiting with his vice president and top-level managers. Summoning her full executive demeanor, Shelley launched into a presentation of various alternative plans, discussion of which took up the remainder of the day. There was no problem keeping everyone’s attention during the high-level meeting. The company was fighting for its corporate life. Dean’s staff was ready and willing to work

  The questions came fast and furiously, and she dealt with them honestly, including the painful ones about Joel.

  “Where does Cassidy fit into this?”

  “What can we expect from Cassidy if we do get an offer from the California people? Will he let us make the deal and then pay him off, or will he demand to be paid first?”